Awakening of the Goddess Within

I had the typical Christian upbringing, baptized in a church that I had attended regularly for 16 years. My 16th year, however, was a turning point in my religious instruction. I came to question not Christianity itself, but the practice of it and the way it was interpreted. I held a vague dissatisfaction with the contradictions of Christianity. I saw what in my church at least is a focus on church laws, rather than on the teachings of the Christian prophet and savior. I saw a focus on politics in many Christian religions, especially related to the church’s stand on women’s reproductive rights. I saw that some religions have the nerve to dictate to women that they should "cleave" unto their husbands, and that the "word" is evidently capable of interpretation by a few self-selected men only. I saw people using their beliefs as weapons of intolerance, with Christianity becoming rigid and intractable.

I had an intuitive feeling that there is much more to our spirit or soul that has been lost over the millenniums. As I grew up I took an interest in the Goddess aspect of many pagan religions. This may have come to me naturally because I am of Irish and Welsh descent. The old religions appealed to me more and more. I soon realized that Christianity is a mosaic, the result of the new religion overtaking the old through adaptation and the slow but sure destruction of the Goddess.

Christianity tried in vain to reproduce a Goddess within the confines of its limited beliefs, in the form of Mother Mary. Far from the fertility symbols of many Goddesses, she is the symbol of unattainable purity. She is the perpetual virgin, who sits above all women aloof and untouchable. In turn, the Goddesses were replaced with seductive creatures of old, women with names like Jezebel and Delilah who destroyed men’s souls through their female (and therefore destructive) wiles.

This was a direct and deliberate corruption of the Goddesses who knew the importance of replenishment of the people, animals and crops. Fertility, the celebration of life, became a sin. The celebration of fertility was replaced by the baptism ritual, which removes the original sin of disobedience (which, as we all know, was blamed on Eve). The attainment of a perfect soul through religious devotion was advocated to attain a place in heaven. The replenishment of Mother Earth was replaced by the destruction of nature to make way for the increasing demands of civilization. Women, who at one time were worshipped, were blamed for the destruction of paradise and became victims of stoning and burning. Such contempt for those responsible for the birth of mankind!

The Goddesses make sense to me. Their lives were much kinder and gentler. The Goddesses knew how to live with and respect nature. They learned about the magic contained in nature to heal and beautify. Celtic women were treated by men as equals. These women fought beside their men, as opposed to simply standing behind their masters as a force behind the throne.

Today we are unwilling to use our innate ability to work with nature. Instead we are lured by the smell of black gold, by monetary values placed on trees for homes, and by pharmaceuticals that replace natural substances with expensive chemical duplications.

We have advanced as a civilization, but we have lost our spirit of cooperation and understanding. We have become a world of lonely strangers.

We need to power down and ponder where we are going and what we will become. Each of us as individuals must learn to step back into the old beliefs and figure out how to recapture a world we would want to be a part of.

The awakening of the Goddess is needed. Get in touch with her. Take a day out of your hectic life and simply take a walk in the forest, in the countryside, or on the beach. The spirit of the Goddess is everywhere. Observe the grand old oak, feel its strength and imagine it holds the wisdom of the ages. See a daisy and wonder at its perfection. Look how she moves the oceans, feel her breath in the wind, and smell her fragrance in the new born grass.

A primary lesson to be sure, but you will reawaken the connection we all share with the Earth and you will soon discover the cooperation of nature so she can teach us to cooperate with her. All it takes is a walk with nature.

Kathleen Eastwood, March 2001